Comparing Student Performance on Proctored and Non-Proctored Exams in Online Psychology Courses

Lee William Daffin Jr., Ashley Anne Jones

Abstract


As online education becomes a more popular and permanent option for obtaining an education after high school, it also raises questions as to the academic rigor of such classes and the academic integrity of the students taking the classes. The purpose of the current study is to explore the integrity issue and to investigate student performance on online examinations. Utilizing a sample of about 1,700 students who took online psychology classes of varying difficulty at Washington State University from the spring 2015 to spring 2016, we found that students performed 10-20% better but took about twice as long on non-proctored versus proctored exams. This confirmed our hypotheses and the effect held when we compared our in-house proctoring service used during this time against ProctorU used for one semester in the fall 2012. To ensure the most robust design possible, we also rotated the proctored exam in each class at least once and then compared performance on an exam when it was proctored versus when the same exam was non-proctored. Results showed better performance when the exam was non-proctored then when it was proctored. Finally, since instructors changed over the four semesters our study ran, we wanted to ensure that the results were due to student misconduct and not differences in teaching style. This potential confounding variable was eliminated. Implications of student misconduct for academic integrity in online classes is discussed and potential solutions presented, including a future direction for research.

Keywords


cheating, online education, proctored exams, time measure

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ayal, S., Gino, F., Barkan, R., & Ariely, D. (2015). Three principles to REVISE people’s unethical behavior. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(6), 738-741.

Bunn, D. N., Caudill, S. B., & Gropper, D. M. (1992). Crime in the classroom: An economic analysis of undergraduate student cheating behavior. The Journal of Economic Education, 23(3), 197-207.

Carstairs, J., & Myors, B. (2009). Internet testing: A natural experiment reveals test score inflation on a high-stakes, unproctored cognitive test. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(3), 738-742.

Christe, B. (2003). Designing online courses to discourage dishonesty. Educause Quarterly, 26(4), 54-58.

Cizek, G. J. (1999). Cheating on tests: How to do it, detect it, and prevent it. Routledge.

D'Arcy, J., & Devaraj, S. (2012). Employee misuse of information technology resources: testing a contemporary deterrence model. Decision Sciences, 43(6), 1091-1124.

Gino, F., Ayal, S., & Ariely, D. (2009). Contagion and differentiation in unethical behavior the effect of one bad apple on the barrel. Psychological science, 20(3), 393-398.

Grijalva, T. C., Nowell, C., & Kerkvliet, J. (2006). Academic honesty and online courses. College Student Journal, 40(1), 180-185.

Haney, W. M., & Clarke, M. J. (2007). Cheating on Tests: Prevalence, detection and implications for online testing. Psychology of academic cheating, 255-287.

Hannay, M. & Newvine, T. (2006). Perceptions of distance learning: A comparison of online and traditional learning. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 2(1), 1-11.

Harmon, O. R., & Lambrinos, J. (2008). Are online exams an invitation to cheat? Journal of Economic Education, 116-125.

Hollister, K. K., & Berenson, M. L. (2009). Proctored versus unproctored online exams: Studying the impact of exam environment on student performance. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 7(1), 271-294.

Hylton, K., Levy, Y., & Dringus, L. P. (2016). Utilizing webcam-based proctoring to deter misconduct in online exams. Computers & Education, 92-93, 53-63.

Kitahara, R., Westfall, F., & Mankelwicz, J. (2011). New, multi-faceted hybrid approaches to ensuring academic integrity. Journal of Academic and Business Ethics, 3, 1.

Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of marketing research, 45(6), 633-644.

Milliron, V., & Sandoe, K. (2008). The net generation cheating challenge. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 4(6), 3.

Moten, J., Jr., Fitterer, A., Brazier, E., Leonard, J., & Brown, A. (2013). Examining online college cyber cheating methods and prevention measures. The Electronic Journal of e-learning, 11, 139-146.

Richardson, R., & North, M. (2013). Strengthening the trust in online courses: a common sense approach. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 28(5), 266-272.

Rowe, N. C. (2004). Cheating in online student assessment: Beyond plagiarism. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 7(2).

Shu, L. L., Mazar, N., Gino, F., Ariely, D., & Bazerman, M. H. (2012). Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(38), 15197-15200.

Stack, S. (2015). The impact of exam environments on student test scores in online courses. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 26(3), 273-282.

Spaulding, M. (2009). Perceptions of academic honesty in online vs. face-to-face classrooms. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 8(3), 183-198.

Stuber-McEwen, D., Wiseley, P., & Hoggatt, S. (2009). Point, click, and cheat: Frequency and type of academic dishonesty in the virtual classroom. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 12(3).

Trenholm, S. (2007). A review of cheating in fully asynchronous online courses: A math or fact-based course perspective. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 35(3), 281-300.

Wellman, G. S., & Marcinkiewicz, H. (2004). Online learning and time-on-task: Impact of proctored vs. un-proctored testing. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(4), 93-104.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24059/olj.v22i1.1079

Bookmark and Share